Speaking of "too late... damage done" - isn't it strange how Kimberly-Clark bought Kenvue (Tylenol) right after RFK Jr and Trump started saying Tylenol causes autism, hurting sales and dropping stock value?
I can't wait to find out how many tens of millions of Trump and Ivanka and Baron Coin they bought, and for nothing to be ever done about it.
And the company cannot sue for libel as SCOTUS has already stated that POTUS is immune as long it was part of official acts. The thing I don't know enough about is if they meant for suing in the courts while still allowing for Congress the ability granted them by the Constitution to impeach/convict/remove. That was Trump's position as the only way to hold POTUS accountable, which goes to explain why he is so worried about keeping control of both chambers. What happens after his term doesn't matter has he has immunity from SCOTUS if Congress does nothing.
You can also opt to take a small amount of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) together with the paracetamol. It seems to be safe overall and safe during pregnancy, and will prevent any potential depletion of glutathione stores which counteract the toxic metabolites of paracetamol.
In fact, if NAC was added to paracetamol by default (which seems to be safe), it would make it nigh impossible to overdose on it, where paracetamol accounts for the most drug overdoses in Western countries and is the leading cause of acute liver failure.
This is a meta review that looked at a selection of other reviews that all suggested a correlation does exist. This meta review is pointing out that they believe there's not strong enough evidence in those other reviews to say concretely, scientifically, that there's a link. Only a tentative link. This is in no way a study saying that there is no link. It's a study saying there's not enough of a preponderance of evidence in all these other studies to definitively say there's a link.
“Current evidence does not demonstrate a clear link between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism but our work also demonstrates how poor the data is around medications in pregnancy,"
The people who need to see this don't travel outside of their self-reinforcing media ecosystem or they wouldn't have been susceptible to this nonsense in the first place.
It was very odd the way Trump called it out. Rfk is the oddest guy in the administration so it's not surprising. Trump however is pretty transactional and usually has a good reason for the things that he does, even if you don't like them (and not just self serving attention grabbing reasons, but power plays and maximum pressure tactics) . He definitely had an angle here. Was it to demonstrate his power to Big Pharma? Either way this was a bit of an own goal for him.
I think the general advice to pregnant women is to generally avoid most/all medications as much as possible as a just in case thing.
There are a lot of things that it could be that changed to bring more autism in society. It could also be a multi-generational affect of things started close to a century ago. We have a lot of food that isn't anything someone a couple hundred years ago would consider "food"... highly processed, industrialized, refined, etc. The fact is, we largely don't know, and a lot of affects are individualized.
Fevers are known to be dangerous to a fetus, especially in the first trimester. Embracing a known danger to avoid an unknown potential one seems crazy.
> I think the general advice to pregnant women is to generally avoid most/all medications as much as possible as a just in case thing.
I really don’t think that’s true. e.g. having a fever for a prolonged period could endanger the woman and/or the baby and taking Tylenol would be a risk reducer by comparison.
> There are a lot of things that it could be that changed to bring more autism in society.
Also quite possible that there isn’t any more autism in society, just that greater awareness has led to increased diagnoses.
There are concerns that the increase in autism diagnoses is because something is causing more children to be affected by the condition. Is this accurate?
Changes in the diagnostic criteria and increased screening at wellness visits seem to be the main contributors. There have been a few studies over the past two years that have looked at a specific subgroup of individuals on the spectrum who frequently need 24-hour-a-day support and care from a caregiver, often have very limited verbal communication skills, or have intellectual disability that co-occurs with autism.
The data has shown that rates of autism for that subgroup have increased minimally, if at all, over the past nearly 10 years.
That makes sense, my own recent diagnosis is mild and borderline. I went my whole life without even knowing I had it.
I'm sure the rising numbers include lots of people like me. People who for all intents and purposes don't have autism in the manner that people think about when they're imagining or being made afraid of someone very different.
No, they shouldn't avoid medication as much as possible, because leading them to think they should ignore symptoms is dangerous just like the taking the wrong medication. They should consult their doctor about when during pregnancy acetaminophen is appropriate. And as long as they've chosen a real doctor who doesn't give advice based on culture wars, they'll be fine.
There’s no evidence of a link but there also is no evidence that there is no link.
In the end, nothing proven. Everything politics.
Too late. The damage has been done and the truth doesn't matter.
We're gonna have people saying Tylenol causes Autism/ADHD for at least another 5 years.
I hope we're so lucky that it's only 5 years. Wakefield's "study" was published in 1998 and it's still widely believed.
Speaking of "too late... damage done" - isn't it strange how Kimberly-Clark bought Kenvue (Tylenol) right after RFK Jr and Trump started saying Tylenol causes autism, hurting sales and dropping stock value?
I can't wait to find out how many tens of millions of Trump and Ivanka and Baron Coin they bought, and for nothing to be ever done about it.
The underlying issue is that there is an unsatisfying risk reward ratio.
Taking Tylenol doesn’t have a huge benefit, but severe autism is a catastrophe.
Even though the causation is not proven, correlation might give you pause to have such a catastrophic result.
There are a lot of people who are not parents discussing this, but as a parent, I don’t think I would let my wife take tylenol during pregnancy.
> Even though the causation is not proven, correlation might give you pause to have such a catastrophic result.
You would have a valid point if there was a correlation.
There is no correlation between Tylenol and autism and ADHD.
And the company cannot sue for libel as SCOTUS has already stated that POTUS is immune as long it was part of official acts. The thing I don't know enough about is if they meant for suing in the courts while still allowing for Congress the ability granted them by the Constitution to impeach/convict/remove. That was Trump's position as the only way to hold POTUS accountable, which goes to explain why he is so worried about keeping control of both chambers. What happens after his term doesn't matter has he has immunity from SCOTUS if Congress does nothing.
The recent immunity decision isn't particularly relevant to civil suits.
Presidents have had civil immunity since Mississippi vs Johnson (1867), which was reaffirmed in Nixon vs Fitzgerald (1982).
Barr v. Matteo (1959) is probably most on point here; providing immunity from libel for statements made by government officials as part of their job.
you target rfk jr, not trump.
5? That number is far too low - even here on HN we have people genuinely commenting that vaccines directly cause autism.
You can also opt to take a small amount of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) together with the paracetamol. It seems to be safe overall and safe during pregnancy, and will prevent any potential depletion of glutathione stores which counteract the toxic metabolites of paracetamol.
In fact, if NAC was added to paracetamol by default (which seems to be safe), it would make it nigh impossible to overdose on it, where paracetamol accounts for the most drug overdoses in Western countries and is the leading cause of acute liver failure.
NAC causes cancer in humans.
This is a meta review that looked at a selection of other reviews that all suggested a correlation does exist. This meta review is pointing out that they believe there's not strong enough evidence in those other reviews to say concretely, scientifically, that there's a link. Only a tentative link. This is in no way a study saying that there is no link. It's a study saying there's not enough of a preponderance of evidence in all these other studies to definitively say there's a link.
In other words, there’s no evidence of a link.
In today's both-sides-poisoned discourse, it would be considered biased or betray an agenda to recognize that only one side has a burden of proof.
surprised pikachu faces all around.
Too late. Mission accomplished. Other acetaminophen brands weren't called out, just Tylenol.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kenvue-kimberly-clark-acquisiti...
It's ok, maybe Tylenol can rebrand as paracetemol and leave the legacy of acetaminophen behind them.
“Current evidence does not demonstrate a clear link between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism but our work also demonstrates how poor the data is around medications in pregnancy,"
Funny- everyone on here was so convinced by the harvard study before trump and rfk hijacked it
The people who need to see this don't travel outside of their self-reinforcing media ecosystem or they wouldn't have been susceptible to this nonsense in the first place.
How surprising! lol
yeah. We can see how controversial this is by looking at the comment count
It was very odd the way Trump called it out. Rfk is the oddest guy in the administration so it's not surprising. Trump however is pretty transactional and usually has a good reason for the things that he does, even if you don't like them (and not just self serving attention grabbing reasons, but power plays and maximum pressure tactics) . He definitely had an angle here. Was it to demonstrate his power to Big Pharma? Either way this was a bit of an own goal for him.
I just assumed it was stock manipulation (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25l92q9xgo)
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I think the general advice to pregnant women is to generally avoid most/all medications as much as possible as a just in case thing.
There are a lot of things that it could be that changed to bring more autism in society. It could also be a multi-generational affect of things started close to a century ago. We have a lot of food that isn't anything someone a couple hundred years ago would consider "food"... highly processed, industrialized, refined, etc. The fact is, we largely don't know, and a lot of affects are individualized.
IMO, that general advice is wrong.
Fevers are known to be dangerous to a fetus, especially in the first trimester. Embracing a known danger to avoid an unknown potential one seems crazy.
> I think the general advice to pregnant women is to generally avoid most/all medications as much as possible as a just in case thing.
I really don’t think that’s true. e.g. having a fever for a prolonged period could endanger the woman and/or the baby and taking Tylenol would be a risk reducer by comparison.
> There are a lot of things that it could be that changed to bring more autism in society.
Also quite possible that there isn’t any more autism in society, just that greater awareness has led to increased diagnoses.
There are concerns that the increase in autism diagnoses is because something is causing more children to be affected by the condition. Is this accurate?
~ Is There an Autism Epidemic?, John Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/is-there-an-autism-epidemi...Autism diagnoses are on the rise – but autism itself may not be
~ BBC, 10th May, 2025: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250509-why-autism-diagn...That makes sense, my own recent diagnosis is mild and borderline. I went my whole life without even knowing I had it.
I'm sure the rising numbers include lots of people like me. People who for all intents and purposes don't have autism in the manner that people think about when they're imagining or being made afraid of someone very different.
No, they shouldn't avoid medication as much as possible, because leading them to think they should ignore symptoms is dangerous just like the taking the wrong medication. They should consult their doctor about when during pregnancy acetaminophen is appropriate. And as long as they've chosen a real doctor who doesn't give advice based on culture wars, they'll be fine.